Under the headline ‘Discover the hidden secrets of Botswana’, the ad exposes Botswana’s use of glossy and contrived images of Bushmen to attract tourists, while at the same time using violence and torture to deport the Bushmen from their ancestral land in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.

The ad is being published in five languages (English, French, German, Spanish and Italian) and will be placed in luxury and travel magazines and newspapers worldwide. The first ad has appeared in the March issue of Wired Magazine.

Botswana’s government has been persecuting its first people for decades in an attempt to drive them from their land. Banned from hunting, and forced to apply for permits to enter the reserve, they are now being pushed to the brink of extinction.

Botswana's Bushmen have faced harassment and intimidation at the hands of the government for over a decade.

The ad urges tourists to join Survival’s boycott and not go to Botswana until the Bushmen are allowed to live on their land in peace. More than 7,000 travelers and celebrities including Gillian Anderson, Quentin Blake, Joanna Lumley, Sophie Okonedo, and Mark Rylance have already pledged not to visit Botswana, and three tourism companies have joined the boycott.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said today, ’We will be rolling out this ad campaign over the coming months, spreading the word of the government’s persecution of the Bushmen far and wide. The government could stop the boycott tomorrow by simply upholding the Bushmen’s human rights.’

Notes to editors:

- Click here to see the ad
- To run the ad in your publication to support Survival’s campaign for the Bushmen, please contact gp@survivalinternational.org
- Survival does not pay for advertising space, but relies on the generosity of magazines and their publishers.